CHAPTER 4

THE NORTH ATLANTIC ROUTE

In one sense the North Atlantic route had its beginning as a major
dependence of the U.S. armed forces with the BOLERO movement—the
flight
delivery to the United Kingdom between June 1942 and January 1943 of
some 366 heavy bombers, 150 medium bombers, 183 P-38 fighters, and the
same number of transport aircraft.1 Except for a relatively
small
number of replacement aircraft delivered by ATC crews late in 1942, the
planes were flown by their own combat crews, the men who were destined
to fly them later in combat over Europe or in Africa.23
which
carried the
highest hopes of the AAF. But the pilots had, except in rare instances,
no experience to equip them for a transatlantic flight. They depended
upon transient facilities on northern bases that were unequal to the
demand and upon weather forecasts in an area where weather constituted
under the best circumstances a major hazard to flying, which depended
in turn upon the reports of half-trained radio operators scarcely able
to translate the dots and dashes they laboriously received.4
Only
the exigencies of war could have justified the risks assumed by the
AAF.* The development of a
North Atlantic ferrying route had been
undertaken first by Britain and Canada in 1940. After passage of the

By all
existing standards, their passage across the North Atlantic represented
a tremendous achievement, one for which any one of the pilots very
recently could have anticipated a parade up Broadway and a
complimentary speech by the mayor of New York City.Feverish
preparations had been made for the movement,

* The story of this movement has been told
in Vol. I, 630-45. In
addition to the 882 aircraft which reached their destination in
Britain, there were 38 planes which had been wrecked or otherwise
"lost" en route.

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Lend-Lease Act early in 1941, the United States assumed an
active part in the joint effort to take full advantage of the
"steppingstones" provided by Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, and
Iceland and so to make possible the ferrying of short-range fighters
from North America to Great Britain. As an alternate to the previously
developed base at Gander Lake in southern Newfoundland, the Canadian
government in September 1941 began the development of Goose Bay in
Labrador. During the preceding July the United States had sent
engineers to Narsarssuak in Greenland for the building of the air base
that came to be known as BLUIE WEST 1 (BW-1), and in the following
September work began on BW-8, a much more northerly base on the western
coast of Greenland. United States forces had taken over the defense of
Iceland in July 1941, where they improved airstrips previously occupied
by the RAF and began in the spring of 1942 to build two new air bases
(Meeks and Patterson) near Keflavik.* The eastern terminal lay at
Prestwick in Scotland. When the Eighth Air Force began its movement in
the summer of 1942, work was still in progress all along the route.

At that time it was hoped that some of the disadvantages of the
existing route might be overcome by developing a more northerly airway
extending from Great Falls, Montana, across Canada to Hudson Bay and
thence by way of Baffin Island to BLUIE WEST 8 in Greenland. By thus
following the great circle course, long one of the goals of airmen, the
distance from southern California, where much of the U.S. aircraft
industry was concentrated, to Iceland might be cut by almost 600 miles.
It was expected that more favorable flying weather would be found, that
valuable experience with Arctic conditions of flight would be acquired,
and that the experiment might lead to the development of a shorter
airway into Russia.5

Preliminary surveys had been made in 1941, when weather stations
were
also established at Fort Chimo in Quebec (CRYSTAL I), on Frobisher Bay
(CRYSTAL II), and on Padloping Island (CRYSTAL III). In consequence of
a directive issued by the Chief of Staff on 24 May 1942 construction of
landing strips and other necessary facilities was begun in the
following summer at The Pas and Churchill in Manitoba, at Southampton
Island, and at CRYSTAL I and CRYSTAL II. CRYSTAL I did not lie on the
line of the proposed CRIMSON route, but it was expected that the field
there would make

possible a useful alternate route between Goose Bay and
Greenland. The program received a severe setback on 27 August when an
enemy submarine operating off the Labrador coast sank a ship carrying
some 6,000 tons of cargo, including vital construction equipment
intended for use at CRYSTAL I, CRYSTAL II, and Southampton Island. A
more predictable limitation upon the project resulted from the early
onset of extremely cold weather.6

The winter of 1942-43 presented major problems all along the North
Atlantic route. An accident rate of 2.9 per cent in September rose to
5.8 per cent in October, and it continued to climb. On 22 November ATC
suspended the transportation of passengers across the North Atlantic
for the duration of the winter. The operation of two-engine transports
beyond Iceland already had been forbidden. Some ferrying, chiefly of
long-range aircraft, continued into December, as did the transport
operations of C-54's and C-87's under contract with TWA and American
Airlines, but by mid-December the North Atlantic route had been
virtually closed down for the winter.7Traffic was diverted to
the
South Atlantic. The distance to Britain by this route was double that
of the projected CRIMSON route, but operations could be maintained on a
year-round basis. The prospect in 1943 that a transatlantic route
through the Azores would soon be possible brought the expensive and
unlucky CRIMSON project to an early end.8

Problems of Control

When the air movement of the Eighth Air Force began in the summer
of
1942, Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Giles had just become the commanding
officer of the newly established North Atlantic Wing of the Air
Transport Command. According to his instructions, he was responsible
"for all operations, facilities and installations" along the North
Atlantic route, including "all meteorological and communications
systems and personnel pertinent to the operation of this activity."9
But it immediately became apparent that these instructions had not been
fully "co-ordinated" back in Washington. The Eighth Air Force assigned
to its fighter command full responsibility for the control and
direction of its planes in flight from the United States to Great
Britain, and during the first phase of the movement the orders were
given by VIII Fighter Command "control" officers who had been stationed
along the route for that purpose. Few if any of these

--94--

officers had the experience that would qualify them for
this special service, and the Eighth Air Force quickly agreed that ATC
should take charge. After 22 July, when the second phase of the
movement began, ATC had full operational control, and ATC pilots flew
the lead planes. A sharp drop in the accident rate justified the
transfer.10

More complex were the problems involving the Canadians and the
British.
No serious difficulty developed with the Canadians, whose influence
along the western part of the route had tended heretofore to be
dominant. There it proved to be easy enough to agree that, where bases
were shared, each national service would be free to become as
self-sufficient as it desired to be for the assistance and direction of
its own traffic. But it was not so easy to fit American plans into the
requirements of British policies governing the movement of aircraft
from Iceland east into Britain. All planes flying this last leg of the
North Atlantic route penetrated a zone of vital importance to the
immediate defense of Great Britain, and British authorities were
naturally inclined to feel that they must maintain full control over
all aircraft flying within that zone.

General Giles and other responsible U.S. officers, on the other
hand,
saw in this situation "a major obstacle to the all out effort when the
U.S. ATC ferrying operations are increased to sustain the large
American forces" to be deployed ultimately in the United
Kingdom.11Especially
objectionable was the existing necessity for
American
pilots and navigators to "change over from American flight control
procedure to unfamiliar British procedure" in the very area where the
most hazardous flying conditions were encountered.12 Had
the
American flyers been largely veteran transport pilots, the story might
have been different, but instead the AAF's planes were flown, and quite
obviously would continue to be flown, very largely by inexperienced and
recently trained combat crews. Giles urged the establishment of an
American controlled airway all the way into Britain and the acquisition
there of additional terminal fields to be staffed by American personnel.

The problem was fully discussed in a series of meetings at
Montreal and
Washington during November and December 1942, in which Maj. Gen. Harold
L. George of ATC and Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill, Air
Officer Commanding in Chief of the RAF Ferry Command, participated, as
did other ranking officers of the AAF and the RAF.13 At
these
conferences the RAF Ferry Command

--95--

insisted upon its need for "over-riding control" between
the final point of departure, wherever it might be along the route,*
and Prestwick.14 In reply, General
George insisted upon the need for
the AAF to exercise full control over its own planes throughout the
entire route. More particularly, he demanded that American
communications and weather services be extended into Britain, that all
communication between the ground and American planes in flight pass
through AAF control officers, that two major airports in the United
Kingdom be set aside for the exclusive use of the AAF, and that at
least four alternate airfields be specified for ATC's use, each of them
to be staffed by AAF weather, communications, and control
personnel.15

This was a large order, but George had the advantage of speaking
for
the organization to which belonged, as everyone present understood,
most of the planes destined to fly the North Atlantic during the coming
years. Consequently, most of his demands were met. It was agreed that
U.S. communications services and procedures would be established
throughout the route. It was also agreed that the AAF would develop its
own weather service, subject to the approval of the Air Ministry.
Communications between ground stations and American aircraft normally
would be conducted through the agency of ATC's control officers, but no
ATC officer would dispatch an aircraft for flight into the United
Kingdom until clearance with the RAF Fighter Command had been secured
by ATC at the terminal point of the flight. At all points close liaison
between the AAF and the RAF or RCAF would be maintained. General George
agreed to accept joint tenancy at four bases, Prestwick in Scotland,
Nutts Corner in North Ireland, Valley in Wales, and St. Mawgan in
Cornwall, in lieu of the exclusive control of two bases. Finally, the
ATC was authorized to utilize four alternate fields within the United
Kingdom.16 To direct Air
Transport Command operations within the
European Theater and between Great Britain and North Africa, it was
decided to establish a European Wing of the ATC, under the command of
Col. Paul E. Burrows, commander of the Caribbean Wing since its
establishment, who was known to be acceptable to Sir Frederick
Bowhill.17

The final agreements between the RAF Ferry Command and the

* Long-range planes did not necessarily
land at Iceland and might fly
direct from Newfoundland or Greenland.

--96--

Air Transport Command were reached on 2 December 1942. On 4
February 1943 Colonel Burrows with a skeleton staff opened his
headquarters at London. Meanwhile, the new control procedures agreed
upon were put into effect. In April the Air Transport Command became
the principal tenant at Prestwick. At the other proposed ATC bases,
additional construction and personnel were required, but in June all
three were opened to ATC traffic. The Air Transport Command's control
of ferrying and transport activities over the North Atlantic was now
virtually complete.18

The Re-establishment of a Northern
Route

Meanwhile, the successful Allied invasion of North Africa,
together
with the suspension of operations in the North Atlantic because of the
adverse effects of winter weather, had redirected the flow of
transoceanic traffic to the South Atlantic route. Not only did combat
in North Africa and the Mediterranean greatly increase the demand for
ferrying and transport of key personnel and critical items of supply by
the southern airway but Allied control of Morocco and Algiers had the
effect of opening a new airway to Britain.* The first weeks of 1943 saw
the initial flight delivery of B-17's to the Eighth Air Force in
Britain by way of Marrakech.19 And General Spaatz,
chief of the U.S.
airmen on Eisenhower's staff, soon asked ATC to inaugurate a regular
transport service of two round trips per week between Marrakech and the
United Kingdom.20

ATC had already placed enough C-54's, flown by TWA crews, on the
South
Atlantic route from the United States to the United Kingdom to supply a
through service of one round trip a week, a service designed to handle
only the highest priority cargo and passengers. It now proposed to step
up that service to a twice-weekly schedule early in February, with each
plane making an extra round-trip shuttle between Prestwick and
Marrakech before returning to the United States.21 As
the winter
months wore on, the need for a larger transport operation to North
Africa and Great Britain became increasingly apparent. Ferrying crews
piled up in the United Kingdom, as the existing military service, even
when supplemented by the commercial flights of Pan American Airways'
and American Export's seaplanes, proved quite incapable of handling
this load alone, much less other high priority air traffic.22
As
additional C-54 aircraft

were made available, the military contract service over the
South Atlantic was stepped up to three trips a week, and an equivalent
increase in the shuttle between Marrakech and the United Kingdom was
made. But it was the reopening in April of the much shorter North
Atlantic air route that met the ever increasing demands. The route thus
reopened was never to be shut down again until after the close of
hostilities.23

At the beginning of the 1943 season, conditions generally along
the
North Atlantic route were superior to those pertaining in the previous
year. Personnel at the North Atlantic Wing bases were more numerous and
more experienced, and communications facilities were more complete,
though far from perfect. To handle the anticipated increase of traffic,
the North Atlantic Wing in March secured permission to use Dow Field at
Bangor, Maine, as a second staging point for the overseas movement of
tactical crews and their aircraft. In March, too, Meeks Field near
Keflavik in Iceland was opened as a replacement for the crowded
airdrome at Reykjavik.*

The new season opened with something of a flourish. When Col.
Robert M.
Love, Deputy Chief of Staff of the ATC, ferried a B-17 directly across
the North Atlantic from Newfoundland to Prestwick in a ten-hour flight
on 16-17 April, he was one of approximately sixty ferry pilots cleared
within a few hours to fly the same route.24Meanwhile
aircraft
operated by TWA from Washington and by American Airlines from New York
had inaugurated a direct transport operation over the North Atlantic,
averaging approximately one round trip a day. The U.K.–Marrakech
shuttle now became an appendage to the North Atlantic rather than to
the South Atlantic schedules. The backlog of ferry pilots was speedily
reduced, and the demand for a high priority cargo and passenger service
between the United States and Great Britain was met. By summer the
tempo of operations was speeded up to an average of three round-trip
flights daily over the North Atlantic airway.25

Although the North Africa operations had made serious demands on
the
Eighth Air Force for men and materiel, its primary mission of daylight
strategic bombing, never forgotten, was reaffirmed in May at the
TRIDENT conference in the Combined Bomber Offensive Plan.26
By
devoting most of its ferrying and transport operations on the North
Atlantic route to the build-up for this offensive, ATC

contributed significantly to its success. Over three
thousand aircraft, principally four-engine bombers and especially
B-17's, were flown to Britain by the North Atlantic route in 1943,
while less than seven hundred planes of all types went by way of the
circuitous South Atlantic route. Nearly 550 ferried planes made the
eastward passage in June, the best month of the year in total
deliveries.27

The crews which flew the ferried aircraft during 1943 and
subsequently
were of three sorts. During 1943 approximately 27 per cent of all
planes delivered were flown by members of established tactical
organizations, notably heavy- and medium-bomber groups destined to see
service with the VIII Bomber Command. Thirty-eight per cent of the
deliveries were made by replacement crews, that is, by crews intended
for combat service in some tactical organization of the Eighth Air
Force. The remaining 35 per cent were delivered by ATC's Ferrying
Division crews, who, after arrival in the U.K., returned to their home
bases for new ferrying assignments.28

The original plans for 1943 provided for sending all four-engine
aircraft through Dow Field, Gander, and thence directly to Prestwick;
two-engine ferried planes were to go by way of Presque Isle, Goose Bay,
BW-1, Meeks Field, and Prestwick. During the spring months, however,
weather conditions led to the dispatching of many four-engine planes
through Goose Bay rather than Gander and in some cases over the more
northerly circuit provided for two-engine craft. For a time, after
Harmon Field near Stephenville in Newfoundland was transferred to the
Air Transport Command in August, most of the four-engine planes flew
directly from that field to Prestwick. With the coming of winter the
movement of two-engine planes was stopped, and most of the heavy
bombers were again routed by way of Greenland and Iceland.29

During the BOLERO movement nearly two hundred P-38's had been
ferried
over the North Atlantic route, and so planning for 1943 contemplated
the flight delivery of additional pursuits over the same airway. A
forecast issued in March called for the movement during the months of
June and July of three fighter groups, each equipped with seventy-five
P-47's.30 This program was
abandoned, however, and the only fighters
to attempt the run in 1943 were ten P-47's, flown by Ferrying Division
pilots, which left the Republic factory for an experimental flight on
23 July 1943. Two B-24's were assigned as lead planes, and one C-87
followed to drop emergency equipment to

--99--

any pilots who might be forced to bail out. The flight was
delayed at Goose Bay for twelve days, as a result of a mistaken
impression by the officer in command of the movement regarding the
minimum weather requirements. Pushed along finally by higher
authorities of the North Atlantic Wing, the flight reached Prestwick on
11 and 12 August, minus one P-47, which had ground-looped, ruining its
landing gear, at BW-1.31 The movement was
pronounced successful by
the North Atlantic Wing and the Ferrying Division, and both of these
organizations expressed a qualified readiness to deliver large numbers
of P-47's over the route. On 20 August, however, the Air Staff decided
that no further flight deliveries of P-47's should be attempted that
season.32

The safe delivery of as many aircraft as possible was of course
the
goal of every ferry movement. This was emphasized afresh by ranking
officers of the North Atlantic Wing during the spring of 1943. Control
officers were directed to clear the early ferry movements through their
stations only when conditions were "most favorable." Although it was
impossible for the wing to supply command pilots to fly in the lead
planes of tactical convoys, as had been done in 1942 after the first
phase of the BOLERO movement, ferried aircraft in 1943 moved over the
route in much greater safety than was the case the previous year. In
1942, approximately 4.12 per cent of all aircraft which entered the
North Atlantic Wing for overseas movement was wrecked or otherwise
lost. During the first ten and a half months of 1943, the loss ratio
dropped to 1.14 per cent, and the Ferrying Division was quick to point
out that its own crews had made a still better record on the planes
which they ferried over the North Atlantic route. They had delivered
approximately a third of the B-17's which traveled that way and had to
their charge only an eighth of the B-17 accidents which had occurred on
the route during the year.33

Meanwhile, plans for the winter use of the North Atlantic route
through
the season of 1943-44 took shape. Even in the latter months of 1942,
Col. Lawrence Fritz, Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations at ATC
headquarters, had personally demonstrated the possibility of winter
flights over the route, at least by a skilled and experienced pilot.
But for large-scale ferrying there was urgent need for more accurate
weather forecasting, particularly of conditions at the termini of the
route. The means of collecting the necessary information had indeed
improved notably during the course of 1943,

--100--

The 30th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, using stripped
B-25's specially equipped for weather observations, had been flying
back and forth between the stations of the North Atlantic Wing. Its
pilots had also undertaken numerous scheduled daily flights along
routes which were planned to give the forecasters more direct
information regarding doubtful weather conditions. Meanwhile,
corresponding British observers had been working out to the west,
north, and southwest of the United Kingdom. The improved forecasts
based on these flights encouraged those who wished to keep the North
Atlantic route open during the winter of 1943-44. After the decision
had been reached, the Operations Division at ATC headquarters assigned
three of the command's C-54's as weather planes, to fly back and forth
over the North Atlantic routes for the winter, accumulating weather
data and fixing standards for safe and reliable winter operations. The
information accumulated by the crews of these aircraft filled the last
gaps on the weather map and contributed materially to the safe use of
the route through the winter months.34

Meanwhile, on 4 September, Maj. Gen. Barney M. Giles, then acting
in
General Arnold's absence as commanding general of the AAF, directed the
Air Transport Command to plan for the ferrying of three hundred
four-engine bombers over the North Atlantic during each winter month.
Two-thirds of these aircraft were to be delivered by ATC ferrying
crews, one-third by combat crews. Within the Air Transport Command and
the Second Air Force, it was feared that the use of combat crews would
entail excessive losses, but the objections raised were overruled by
General Giles.35

As it proved, the general's judgment was completely vindicated.
Nearly
350 four-engine bombers were delivered by way of the North Atlantic
route in November, 295 in December, 280 in January, 235 in February,
and 333 in March. The pilots of the ATC's Ferrying Division flew only a
minor fraction of the bombers which traveled the North Atlantic route
that winter. In January a little more than a third of the total were
delivered by Ferrying Division crews. The unexpectedly high degree of
success experienced by combat crews led to the virtual withdrawal of
the Ferrying Division's pilots from the route. They made only 6 per
cent of the deliveries in February, and only 3 per cent in March.36

Although the winter record of the North Atlantic was most
creditable,
still larger quantities of aircraft were ferried to the United

--101--

Kingdom by the long South Atlantic route. As late as April
1944, 742 ferried aircraft reached Britain by that airway as against
464 by the North Atlantic route. For May the proportions were almost
exactly reversed, with 742 arrivals over the North Atlantic and only
469 over the southern route. In June only 9 planes trickled in from the
South, while 633 passed through the North Atlantic stations of the ATC.
Ferry traffic during the first five months of 1944 exceeded the total
for the previous year.37

In spite of its large-scale winter ferrying over the North
Atlantic,
the Air Transport Command was still reluctant to run regular westbound
flights over the route during the winter months. The chief objection
lay in the tremendously strong head winds facing a westbound plane,
necessitating an inordinately heavy load of gasoline to insure a proper
margin of safety. Accordingly, the ATC in mid-November 1943 put into
effect a round-robin schedule for the normal route of C-54 transports
during the winter. Eastbound, these aircraft, still flown by TWA and
American Airlines under contract with the Army, were to follow the
usual course from Newfoundland to the United Kingdom. They were to
proceed homeward by way of Marrakech, Dakar, and the established South
Atlantic route.38

Almost immediately, however, the Azores became available as a way
station on eastward flights from the United States to North Africa and
as an alternative to the South Atlantic route for westbound planes.*
The first regularly routed ferried aircraft to go that way, a B-17,
landed at Lagens Field on Terceira on 9 December 1943; twenty days
later a C-54 made the first regularly scheduled eastbound transport
flight through Lagens. By the middle of March all transports flying
between the United States and Great Britain or North Africa were
returning by way of the Azores. Bermuda was used on this run as a
weather alternate to Newfoundland.39

Through the winter of 1943-44, the Air Transport Command provided
a
sizable eastward lift for the movement of key personnel, mail, and
critical cargoes to the European and Mediterranean theaters. In January
1944 over 350 tons, including 785 passengers, were flown from the
United States to those theaters. By June the lift had been increased to
1,178 tons, of which roughly 70 per cent went to the United Kingdom and
30 per cent to North Africa and destinations farther east. In July over
1,900 tons, including 2,570 passengers,

moved eastward over the North Atlantic routes. The basic
transport schedule then in effect called for eleven C-54 flights daily
each way, connecting the United States and the United Kingdom.40

In July the regular North Atlantic route transport operations of
C-54's
flown by TWA and American Airlines crews was supplemented by the
establishment of SNOWBALL, the third in a series of military transport
operations flown by crews belonging to the Ferrying Division.* The
establishment of this new service reflected the obvious need for an
increased airlift to the United Kingdom, the availability of additional
numbers of C-54 aircraft, and the existence within the Ferrying
Division of a reservoir of crews experienced in four-engine operation.
The original routing of the flights was from Presque Isle through
Stephenville in Newfoundland to Valley in Wales and back through Meeks
Field in Iceland to Stephenville and Presque Isle.41

The routine schedule of services of ATC constituted its most
important
contribution to victory, but the potentialities of air transport were
dramatically demonstrated by more than one of the special cargo lifts
that were made, often on very short notice and with an overriding
priority. In the summer of 1943, for example, two lots of
incendiary-bomb fuzes required by the Eighth Air Force were picked up
in the United States and started by air for the United Kingdom within
twenty-four hours after the receipt of the request at ATC headquarters.
In the late autumn of 1943, when the Eighth Air Force was striving to
extend the range of its fighter escorts as a means of reducing the
inordinately large losses incurred in its heavy-bomber missions over
Germany, the solution was sought through the use of jettisonable fuel
tanks. Seventy-five tons of auxiliary tanks and related fittings were
hurried to Britain on ATC transports between the last week of October
and the end of the year. The first regularly scheduled cargo plane
under ATC control to use Lagens Field in the Azores carried five sets
of pontoons, shipped at the urgent request of Lt. Gen. Mark Clark,
together with other cargo for the Mediterranean theater. Within a
half-month, in June and July 1944, Air Transport Command aircraft
transported to Great Britain approximately 125 tons of equipment
designed to combat the robot bomb.42

* The earlier Foreign Military Transport
operations of the Ferrying
Division, the FIREBALL and CRESCENT runs, are discussed above, p. 89,
and below, pp. 129-30.

--103--

The Last Year of the European War

The Allied landings in Normandy in June, 1944, marked the
beginning of
the final offensive which was to bring an end, in another eleven
months, to the European war. The daylight bombing attack against
Germany grew in intensity and fury, while tactical operations reached
an unprecedented pitch. The need of the attacking ground and air forces
for replacement aircraft and for cargo borne by air from the United
States continued to grow. Thanks to the augmentation of its fleet of
four-engine transports and the improvement of its facilities along the
North Atlantic route, the Air Transport Command was able to supply an
increased airlift over that route to the European and Mediterranean
theaters. While the weight of air cargo and passengers landed in those
theaters grew generally during the last year of the war, it fluctuated
considerably from month to month. The North Atlantic lift to the
European theater, which had passed 950 tons in July 1944, dropped to
779 tons in the following month. In October for the first time it
exceeded 1,000 tons, with nearly 600 tons carried to the United Kingdom
and over 460 directly to France. This record was not broken until
March, when 1,500 tons followed the North Atlantic route to Europe.
During the final drive, in April 1945, the total lift passed 1,650
tons, more than half of it to destinations on the Continent.43

The peak of ferrying operations was reached a little earlier.
During
1944 a grand total of approximately 5,900 aircraft was flown over the
North Atlantic to the European theater. In the first three months of
1945 nearly 1,100 were so delivered. In April, however, as the end came
in sight, only 158 ferried aircraft made the eastward run over that
route. Successive cancellations stopped the delivery, first of all, of
B-17 and B-24 aircraft not radar-equipped, then of all heavy bombers,
and, finally, of light and medium bombers, transports, and pursuit
aircraft destined for either the European or the Mediterranean
theater.44

The tempo of ferrying operations is not adequately measured by
taking
the total number of arrivals within a theater, month by month, and
dividing it by the number of days in the month. The bases en route and
those at the ultimate destination experienced alternate periods of
activity and idleness. The ferried planes were held up, especially
during winter months on the North Atlantic, by bad weather

--104--

and then dispatched in large numbers. Even in the summer,
the flow was very erratic. In July 1944, of the 256 ferried aircraft
received at Prestwick, 50 per cent arrived on three days, 57 in a
single day. At St. Mawgan 120 planes arrived between 9 and 16 November
1944; the next week only 10 appeared. Then came another week in which
there were over 100 landings; the next saw only 3. During the lulls
maintenance personnel and others had little to do. During the surges
they were overworked, and all the facilities of the receiving bases
were severely taxed.45

The pattern of air transport service over the North Atlantic
changed
rapidly in response to the Allied successes in land warfare on the
Continent. On 31 August 1944, only four days after the last of the
German troops left Paris, the Air Transport Command landed its first
aircraft at Orly Field, nine miles away. Orly began almost at once to
sustain a heavy traffic between the United Kingdom and France. Hardly a
month later, on 4 October, the first scheduled ATC plane on the New
York-Paris run landed at Orly. By the middle of the month the ATC's
C-54's were averaging three round trips daily between the homeland and
France, with Stephenville and Lagens as stopping points. As the
campaign continued, this route became of increasing importance. Until
December the U.S.-Paris flights were handled by military aircraft flown
by Ferrying Division crews, thereafter with the additional use of
contract carriers. Schedules in effect on 1 April 1945 called for
fifteen round-trip flights daily between the United States and the
European theater, seven between the United States and Prestwick, and
eight between Paris and either Washington, Presque Isle, or New
York.46

The first C-54 to make the New York-Paris flight carried a typical
cargo, which included aircraft repairs, medical supplies, G.I. mail,
and other mail for Paris and Brussels. Less conventional was the
service inaugurated in mid-October, with the highest priority, for
transport of 3,570 pounds of whole blood daily from New York to Paris.
Interservice co-operation is illustrated by the ATC's delivery to Great
Britain of a 2,500-pound blade for an American naval vessel's
propeller. To combat the German breakthrough in December, 1944, ATC
planes delivered 35 tons of mortar propellant charges to Paris from the
Edgewood Arsenal. Other cargoes included such diverse and non-military
items as vegetable seed to be used by American troops in growing some
of their own food, cylinder heads required to put

--105--

French locomotives back into service, and 100,000 nipples
for feeding French and Dutch infants.47

Victory in Europe was foreshadowed by the inauguration during the
late
winter of 1944-45 of a guaranteed schedule passenger service on the
eastbound run, three days a week, Washington to Paris, via Newfoundland
and the Azores; four days a week, Washington to Prestwick via
Newfoundland. This was a "plush" service, in which the passengers,
having duly made their reservations as for a commercial flight, enjoyed
the comfort of airline seats.48

ATC's Intratheater Service

Until late in 1943 the Air Transport Command's responsibility for
air
operations between the United States and the United Kingdom had
regularly ended at the aerial ports of arrival in Britain, first
Prestwick alone and subsequently Prestwick, Valley, and St. Mawgan.
Usually, aircraft flown by ATC and replacement crews were there turned
over to the Ferry and Transport Service of the VIII Air Service
Command, which in July 1942 had established its own air transport
service within the theater. This operation supplied a vital air link
between the headquarters and depots of the Eighth Air Force. The
personnel and aircraft used in rendering this service were organized in
April 1943 into the 27th Air Transport Group.49

Col. Paul E. Burrows, first commanding officer of the European
Wing of
the Air Transport Command, had been interested, since March 1943 at
least, in establishing a service within the United Kingdom whereby
aircraft would be ferried all the way to the using organizations, while
high priority mail and passengers would be delivered to London, and a
regular shuttle maintained between the several bases utilized by ATC in
the United Kingdom. This proposal was rejected by ATC headquarters at
Washington in April, but the portion of it which called for an internal
transport run ultimately received the approval of General George. At
the request of General Eaker, such an internal shuttle was established
by the European Wing in October 1943. Initially three aircraft of the
DC-3 type furnished the schedules, and Hendon, near London, was added
for this purpose to the bases utilized by the wing. The new service was
called the Marble Arch Line, in reference to the Hyde Park Marble Arch
located just across the street from wing headquarters in London. By the
end of the year additional aircraft made possible two daily round

--106--

trips between Prestwick and Hendon, one between St. Mawgan
and Hendon, and periodic flights to other ATC stations in the British
Isles. During the first half of 1944 the operations of the Marble Arch
Line more than doubled both in passenger-miles and in ton-miles flown.
By far the heaviest traffic was carried on the run between Prestwick
and Hendon, which was in effect a continuation of the transatlantic
service.50

The Marble Arch Line foreshadowed operations which the European
Division performed after it gained a foothold on the Continent in
September 1944. In planning for these operations, the echelons of the
War and State Departments participated and laid down the general
principles summarized in a letter to General Arnold from Under
Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson on 11 September 1944:

The State Department and certain other Government
agencies
have
recently brought to the attention of the War Department the fact that
at the present stage of the war there is an increasing need for air
transportation from this country to and between various parts of
Europe, including areas liberated and to be liberated.

It has been pointed out that our over-all war purposes
will
be
served,
and the overseas period of duty of our troops shortened, by making
foreign air transportation available as far as possible not only to
individuals whose travel is necessary in connection with the military
effort, but also those whose travel will contribute to relief or
rehabilitation activities in war-affected areas or to a resumption of
economic or other activities, disrupted by the war, that are necessary
for the re-establishment of peacetime conditions.

I know that your plans provide for extending the
operations
of the
Air
Transport Command to the various important cities and areas of the
European Continent, and that all appropriate steps will be taken to
facilitate air transportation of our own personnel and others engaged
on military missions. I believe that we should also endeavor, on a
basis subordinate to all of our purely military requirements, to make
air transportation available to other individuals whose travel comes
within the categories described in the preceding paragraph. . . .

It is important, in my opinion, that the Air Transport
Command not
carry traffic other than military traffic or traffic involved in the
military effort if it can be reasonably handled by a United States
civil air carrier, and I believe that any transportation of such
non-military passengers by the Air Transport Command should be regarded
as an interim or emergency matter until such time as the civil airlines
are qualified and are operating over the various routes involved.

Subject to all the foregoing, I believe that it is in our
interest
to
expedite the initiation of suitable air transportation by the Air
Transport Command to all of the European points where our interests are
involved. The service should operate with economy, but it should be so
organized as to demonstrate the efficiency of this country in the air
transportation field and should compare favorably with the air
transport service operated by any of the other nations.51

Especially interesting is the concern shown here for the
competitive
position of American civil aviation at the end of the war.

--107--

Detailed plans for carrying out the program were
necessarily tentative in character and changed from time to time in
response to the changing situation and the expressed desires of
interested agencies. As approved at ATC headquarters on 1 November
1944, the plan called for an extensive network of trunk routes and
feeder services, all in effect extensions of the transatlantic routes
originating in the United States: (1) a line from Iceland into the
Scandinavian countries, with Stockholm as the terminus; (2) another
from the United Kingdom and Paris to Berlin, thence by one extension to
Warsaw and by another to Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia, Istanbul,
Ankara, and Cairo; (3) a line from Paris via Rome and Athens to Cairo,
or via Marseille to Algiers; and (4) a route from Paris via Bordeaux
and Madrid to Casablanca. The key points on the trunk lines were to be
linked with each other and with certain intermediate points by a series
of feeder lines, with the responsibility for development divided
between the Air Transport Command and the air transport groups of the
VIII Air Service Command. The latter, augmented as the need arose by
troop-carrier aircraft and personnel, were to fly local feeder and
distribution services on the Continent for the benefit of American Air
Force units, as they had been doing within the United Kingdom. The ATC,
within the limits of its capacity, was to provide local services for
the American ground forces and for other official and civilian
agencies.52

All this planning in the autumn of 1944 remained dependent on the
course of military operations. For the moment, the Air Transport
Command had quite enough to do in its efforts simply to meet immediate
military needs. Water and rail connections between Britain and Paris
were re-established so slowly that in late October a contingent of 65
troops required for guard duty by the ATC in France was reduced to
landing on OMAHA beach (after a two-day wait offshore), sleeping nearby
on the ground without blankets, and at length cadging a ride to Paris
in British trucks driven by French soldiers. The pressure on the
shuttle service which the Air Transport Command inaugurated between the
United Kingdom and Paris was tremendous, and a host of special calls
was made upon the European Division's resources. Ten planes were
supplied on 2 September, for example, to carry gasoline to General
Patton's Third Army. Toward the end of the month the Division set up a
75-flight special movement of SHAEF personnel from London to
Versailles.53

--108--

The badly bombed airfield at Orly soon became the hub of a
network of shifting air routes. Through it ran the Division's main
trunk line, extending from Prestwick through London to the
Mediterranean terminus at Marseille. A secondary direct route ran from
St. Mawgan to Marseille and on to Naples. Lesser routes served other
military purposes. Passenger weight in November and December was almost
equal to that of both mail and cargo combined. The passengers included
military and civilian VIP's, communication specialists, war-weary
troops homeward bound, cadres for new continental bases of the ATC, and
combat infantrymen on their way to the front. By the end of the year
sixteen flights a day were scheduled to Orly from Bovingdon, which had
replaced Hendon as ATC's base in the London area.54

Planning for the Air Transport Command's continental operation was
complicated by the requests which various organizations within the
theater made for local air transport services. For a time all requests
for air service had been submitted to General Spaatz's USSTAF
headquarters. As the requests multiplied, an agreement was reached in
November that the Division need not establish new routes within the
European theater without the approval of SHAEF and the concurrence of
the Commanding General, USSTAF.55

During the early months of 1945 the rapid advance of the Allied
lines
led nevertheless to the approved extension of ATC's services. Some
routes, like that from St. Mawgan to Naples, were dropped, while others
were added. By early June the close of hostilities had made it possible
to establish a series of schedules comparable to that contemplated
during the previous autumn. In addition to the regular routes flown
within the United Kingdom, and to the numerous London-Paris flights,
the Division's schedules called for one flight daily between London,
Brussels, and Frankfurt; another between London, Paris, and Frankfurt;
still another originating at Paris, with stops at Frankfurt, Munich,
Rome, and Naples; and a fourth serving Paris, Rheims, and Frankfurt. In
addition, there was one flight weekly between Paris, Madrid, and
Lisbon. By July a daily schedule from Paris to Stockholm, with stops at
Brussels, Bremen, Copenhagen, and Oslo, had been inaugurated. Naples
had become the starting point for limited services through Bari to
Belgrade, Bucharest, Tirana, and Sofia and for a direct run, twice
weekly, to Budapest.56

--109--

Scandinavian Operations

A postwar ATC route from Paris to the three Scandinavian capitals
had
some precedent in a number of special wartime missions. The first, the
SONNIE project, began early in 1944, nominally to transport from Sweden
to Great Britain some 2,000 Norwegian aircrew trainees and such
American aircrew internees as the Swedish government might release.
Within fifteen months, aircraft attached to the project removed over
4,300 passengers from Sweden, furnished the only dependable means of
communication with the American legation in Stockholm, and brought to
American aircrews in Sweden the supplies and equipment which enabled
them to repair and prepare for flight to the United Kingdom nearly
two-thirds of the American combat planes which had force-landed in that
country. This project helped to pave the way for ATC's postwar service
into the Scandinavian countries and for the ultimate entry of American
civil aviation into that region.57

The consent of both the British and the Swedish governments was
required. Sweden was concerned, of course, with the protection of its
status as a neutral power. The British, with good reason, feared that
an American operation into Sweden might develop into a dangerous
postwar rival of British aviation interests. In consequence they tried
to prevent its inauguration. Unsuccessful in this, they failed,
likewise, in their efforts to bring the service to an early end.58
To save Sweden's position as a neutral, SONNIE was put on a nominally
civilian basis. Its unarmed Liberators were divested of military
markings; both their crews and the ground echelon which the ATC placed
at Stockholm wore civilian clothes. In form they were working for a
civilian organization termed the American Air Transport Service.59
Though the SONNIE aircraft were unarmed, they operated over enemy-held
Norway. Based from March until November 1944 on the RAF station at
Leuchars, near Aberdeen, Scotland, and thereafter at Metfield in
Suffolk, they normally made a long detour northward before crossing
Norwegian territory. Although enemy interception was a constant threat,
the only aircraft lost during the project crashed into a mountain near
Göteborg, Sweden, in October 1944.60

Col. Bernt M. Balchen, veteran polar aviator and prewar operator
of a
Norwegian civil airline, had a major part to play in the project as an
officer assigned to AC/AS, Plans in AAF Headquarters.

--110--

He helped to make the necessary arrangements with the
Swedish government and eventually was placed in command of the
operation. His acquaintance with numerous persons of consequence in the
Scandinavian countries, his knowledge of the weather and terrain, and
his outstanding personal qualities of leadership made him an admirable
choice. His letters of instruction as commanding officer designated him
as the personal representative of the commanding general of the ATC's
European Wing (Division) and of USSTAF. The latter organization had in
fact had rather more to do with plans for the project than had the
European Wing and had secured from units of the Eighth Air Force the
necessary aircraft and most of the subordinate personnel for
SONNIE.61

A second enterprise which came under Colonel Balchen's command was
the
BALL project. This was a program for dropping weapons, ammunition,
food, radios, and equipment with which to carry on sabotage into the
hands of the Norwegian underground and for dropping secret agents and
radio equipment behind enemy lines in northern Norway. The project,
undertaken for Special Force Headquarters, Office of Strategic
Services, London, lasted from July until September, 1944. Six war-weary
B-24's, specially equipped for the job, and painted with black,
light-absorbent paint, dropped approximately 120 tons of cargo and
personnel at designated points, mostly in southern and central Norway.
Enemy opposition was encountered on fifteen of the sixty-four dropping
missions undertaken. Although no direct damage was suffered as a result
of enemy action, operational hazards thwarted many of the missions and
caused the death of twelve men and the total loss of two of the six
aircraft assigned to the BALL project. Later the task of supplying
the Norwegian underground by air passed to the Eighth Air Force and
then to the British.62

The WHEN AND WHERE project was begun in January 1945 at the
request of
the Norwegian government-in-exile, which made the necessary diplomatic
arrangements with the Swedish and Russian governments. The mission was
the delivery of Norwegian military personnel and cargo to various
points in northern Norway, there to carry on the fight against the
occupying German forces and to counteract any tendency of the Russians
to retain the small foothold which they had won there. Ten C-47's were
assigned to the project and based at Luleå, a Swedish town some
450 miles north of Stockholm. WHEN

--111--

AND WHERE was a frankly military operation; the aircraft
bore AAF markings, and the crews wore uniforms, which they were
supposed to conceal with coveralls while on Swedish military airfields.
The ten transports flew a total of 572 missions and delivered 1,418
persons and 1,223 tons of freight. Several hundred Norwegian police
troops and a field hospital with all its medical supplies and personnel
were included in the airlift. Most of the freight consisted of food and
forage for winter-bound communities. The larger part was landed at
regular, if primitive, airfields, but some use was made of improvised
landing fields, one of which was cleared on the ice of a northern
river. Where even improvised landing fields were not available,
personnel and cargo were dropped, as in the BALL project.63

These three Scandinavian operations were only distantly related to
the
normal mission of the Air Transport Command. The three projects had
little in common beyond the fact that each involved operations over the
Scandinavian peninsula and that each was directed by Colonel Balchen,
nominally as an officer of the Air Transport Command.

During the summer of 1944 the British opposition to the
continuance of
the SONNIE project took shape in a movement to deny the project the use
of the Leuchars base. So important had the operation become, however,
that Colonel Balchen suggested that it be conducted by way of Iceland,
if the Leuchars-Stockholm route had to be abandoned. As it turned out,
the ATC was permitted to continue its operations at Leuchars until late
November, when a reasonably satisfactory substitute was provided at
Metfield. Although the urgent need for opening an Iceland-Stockholm
route had passed, the project was not abandoned. Indeed it—with a
possible extension to Moscow-formed a significant part of the
long-range thinking of ATC and AAF headquarters, well indoctrinated
with the idea of paving a way in the postwar world for American
aviation. In October the North Atlantic Division of the ATC became
responsible for the detailed planning of such a service. Diplomatic
negotiations with Sweden delayed the final action, but a satisfactory
agreement allowing both American and Swedish use of the route was
reached in March 1945. A further obstacle lay in the inadequate
communications facilities available at Stockholm, a factor which had
always hampered SONNIE operations. Only after V-E Day was the needed
AACS* equipment set up at

Bromma Airport. Finally, on 1 June 1945 the first scheduled
flight to Stockholm from Presque Isle via Meeks Field was undertaken.
Thereafter, until late August 1945, when American Export Airlines,
operating as a contract carrier, took over the run, military crews of
the North Atlantic Division operated one round trip a week on this
route.64

Nearly 900 aircraft were ferried through the North Atlantic bases
to
active combat theaters in 1942, approximately 3,200 in 1943, over 8,400
in 1944, and approximately 2,150 in the last five months of the
European conflict in 1945; in all nearly 15,000 planes. Equally
important, and indeed fundamental to the fulfilment of the ferrying
mission itself, was the development of a safe, dependable service for
strategic air transportation between the United States and the United
Kingdom. During the last five months of the war in Europe, over 10,000
tons of air cargo were moved by ATC.65

27
Summary
of Operations of the Air Transport Command, Annual Chartbook, 1943, p.
15; Report of Activities of the ATC for the month ending 15 Jan. 1944;
Hist., North Atlantic Wing, ATC, II, Pt. I, pp. 131-32; Hist., European
Wing, 1943-44, p. 99. It should be noted that the historians of the
European and North Atlantic Wings, each relying upon his own
organization's statistical control section, came up with slightly
different figures for aircraft deliveries. During the summer of 1943
the North Atlantic route was used for the delivery of those aircraft,
capable of negotiating the route, which were destined for the Ninth,
Tenth, Twelfth and Fourteenth Air Force. Report of Activities for the
Air Transport Command for the month ending 15 June 1943.

34
Hist.,
North Atlantic Wing, ATC, II, Pt. II, pp. 241-43, 245-56.
Appropriately, Colonel Fritz was appointed commanding officer of the
North Atlantic Wing of the ATC in October 1943.

35
Memo
for CG AAF from Brig. Gen. C. R. Smith, sub.: Policy—Ferrying
Operations over the North Atlantic Route during the Winter Season of
1943-44, 26 Aug. 1943; memo for Asst. Chief of Air Staff, OC&R,
from Smith, sub.: Operation of Combat Type Aircraft over the North
Atlantic Route during the Winter Season of 1943-44, 4 Sept. 1943; memo
for Lt. Col. Flynn from Maj. Hamilton Heard, sub.: Meeting regarding
Winter Ferrying over the North Atlantic, 1 Oct. 1943, in MATS Hist.
File.

48 Ibid., 16 Mar. 1945. Flight
traffic
clerks, enlisted men whose major function was to promote the comfort
and safety of passengers, had been placed on ATC transports in 194. See
correspondence between General Arnold and General George in 1109th AAF
BU, Early History of the Air Transport Program, Sept. 1942—Oct.
1944,
Exhibit XV.

49 See
AAF in WW II, II, 618-19; History of the European
Wing from Early 1943 to D Day 1944, pp. 5-12.

53
EURD,
Historical Record Report, September and October 1944, pp. 4-5, 106, and
App. 56.

54
EURD,
Historical Record Report, September and October 1944, pp. 14-17, 67-73;
November and December 1944, pp. 36-50. The St. Mawgan-Naples run was
the successor of the earlier shuttle linking the United Kingdom with
North Africa.

55
EURD,
Historical Record Report, November and December 1944, pp. 13-14..

64 Ibid., pp. 53, 83-94, 153-54;
EURD,
Historical Record Report, September and October 1944, Apps. 21-29; NAD,
History of the North Atlantic Division, ATC, 1 October 1944—1
October
1945, Pt. I, pp. 310-14. This last is based upon a NAD monograph,
United States to Sweden Air Transport Service, to which is appended a
valuable collection of documents fundamental to the study.